>Ingrid, have you read THE ONE STRAW REVOLUTION by Masanobu Fukuoka?
>(ISBN 0-553-24739-5)

Ingrid is my wife i am jean-claude

Yes because i am practicing Masanobu 's way of farming , i met him in India
after having visited farms that follow his teaching. The fact that i met him
by "pure coincidence " in Bombay the last day of my trip and have been able
to stay an other day because my plane got canceled by air India ( a strike)
and Masanobu himself  just change his itineray at the last minute on his way
to japan from Somalia and stopped the 2 same days that i stayed in Bombay,
have been a great confirmation for me  that Natural way of farming has
something to offer to the world and that i have a responsability to let
people know about it.

he wrote a more extensive book that is called" The natural way of farming,
theory and philosophy of the green revolution" that is out of print in North
america ( and for some reasons despite the high demand for this book ,it
doesn't get reprinted)
i gathered the web sites related to his work
The naturel way of farming by Kirby Fry
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/natural_way.txt

on a green mountain : visit to his farm
http://www.seedballs.com/gmmfpa.html

Naturel way of farming by jim bones
http://www.seedballs.com/2seedpa.html

Vithal C. Nadkarni article in   the times of India OCT 18 1997
http://www.hvk.org/hvk/articles/1097/0063.html

Natural way of farming in action
http://www.aidindia.org/projects/rural_devp/hulikadu/naturalfarming.html

congres in Pune with Masanobu
http://www.healthlibrary.com/reading/banyan2/6appen2.htm

his books
http://www.hollowtop.com/cls_html/amazonbooks/Fukuoka.htm

how to buy his books
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/01a.fukuokabuy.html

samples of his writing
http://jagor.srce.hr/~ljzivcec/masanobu.htm

southern europe green belt ( regreening the desert)
http://www.mir.org/greenbelt/english/index.htm

Masanobu is working on desertification thru the world and i just got his
last book in japanese but half is photographs ( i have the translations only
for the photos comments. . and it is beautiful to see
africans children in the most desertic parts of africa tending a garden the
natural way where before there was none and where  no scientific technology
will have been able to grow anything ( unless spending way  more energy than
harvesting ). Plants root systems are able to draw the water from underneath
(because in fact the water is coming to the roots rather than the roots are
searching  for water.

He say too that rain is coming from the leaves not from the sky . NO leaves
,no rain!
he explain very well in his book the futility of the scientific approach of
lifes As an ex scientist himself he is very convincing. Science might be
okay when it deal with mechanics but when it comes to manage  life
processes it is very much pretentious.

The author discusses small-scale farming with as little
>intervention as possible, diversity in crops, and a natural way to enrich
or
>revitalize the soil. His crop yields are very high percentage-wise. He
>discusses natural foods (yes it includes grains but also includes a lot of
>other items.) When I moved into my house with its little
>chemically-dependent lawn, I spread sunflower seeds all over the yard for a
>long time to attract birds (and their droppings). My soil is pretty good
>now. Fukuoka said to use ducks and geese for this but it's hard to find
>ducks and geese in the city.

Too bad because their Eggs are richer than chicken eggs ( fatter, more
dense, and bigger with a delicious flavor , even the white is delicious;)
his advice show that he is very much concerned that you have some thing good
to eat too, overwise what you do is better for your lawn  because more
diversity is brought to your lawn.
jean-claude